There is a hole in the bucket, Dear Liza…..Well, fix it, Dear Henry. Use Love and Time.
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There are some moments in your life where you wish you could just hit the fast-forward button so that you could enjoy the benefit of time and its healing properties.
Those fast-forward moments are usually accompanied by deep grief or significant challenges that are emotionally disruptive.
Loss of a loved one, no matter how expected or unexpected, creates this type of a feeling of a hole that just can’t be repaired easily.
When my friend Mark Kafoury passed away 14 years ago he become one of my very close friends and quite literally the person that I enjoyed spending time with the most in my life. There was nobody that I flow with and had more consistent part and laughter with every single time we hung out then mark.
I can’t even write this without crying because that will never be completely filled. However, it does get spackled over pretty well with time and healing of focusing on all of the good memories and experiences that we shared together.
Mark Kafoury, far Left, with his Band Itchy McGuirk, late 90s.
Because I experienced loss at an early age, I have a little bit more time under my belt and experience than some other folks however, nobody is ever an expert at suffering, even though we all get our certification as being a subject matter expert usually by the time we are in the middle of adulthood.
What I found particularly helpful for me was to understand the nature and cause of my suffering so that even though I couldn’t make it go away, at least I could understand why I was feeling the way I was feeling.
That’s where the big fella comes in, the Buddha.
Again the Buddha didn’t set out to be a revered figure or an iconic symbol of spiritualism, but instead he was son of a wealthy family known as Prince Gautama. Gautama set out for the meaning of life and ended up realizing it was inside him, the entire time.
As he got older, there were enough people that decided to document and scribble down as much of his teachings as possible, however, of course, before the printing press, all history was carried forward in an oral tradition so obviously no teachings from anyone that lived in antiquity have ever survived verbatim.
One thing that the Buddha taught was to understand the cause of nature of suffering or dukkha.
In Buddhism, dukkha is a central teaching that refers to suffering, unsatisfactoriness, or discontent in life.
The Buddha taught that dukkha is unavoidable because it arises from many parts of existence, such as birth, aging, illness, death, separation from loved ones, and not getting what one desires. However, the Buddha also taught that accepting the reality of dukkha is the first step toward liberation from suffering
Dukkha arises due to the nature of two things:
How the human mind and spirit work
And
The impermanence of all things that have ever existed
When you combine the active consciousness and loving hearts of humans with the fact that everything that they ever see or touch or experience, including other human beings once back into the ocean, like sand into the sea, it can be a real challenge to let go of the fear of loss and to cope with that loss when it arises.
And grief can come not just in the form of the loss of life, but also in the form of significant changes in your life, ends of working relationships or careers, and certainly personal relationships, friendships, marriages, etc.
So knowing what we know, we have some choices here: do we:
A) batten down the hatches cover up our heart and limit our suffering by limiting our experiences?
I would vote a very hard “NO” for this option.
Or, do we:
Cultivate an awareness of how our mind and spirit and hearts work together and to accept grief and suffering, as simply part of the process of loving and living?
Yes! I choose the latter.
One of the things that I’ve done to help me with my grief that I still experience from the loss of my friend Mark is to take actions with my friends that are still with me when I experience these moments of grief.
So I look up and I see a picture of some trauma inside me I pick up the phone and I text my best friend David Chessler and bring up something from the past so we can reinforce what I have not what I have lost.
I reclaim the energy of abundance of joy through my choice of thoughts.
I’m not avoiding thinking about my friend, but instead I’m taking that thought and those lemons that I experience in a moment and turning them into sweet lemonade by celebrating my current friendships as the loss of a friend really reinforces how much friendships matter and how valuable they are in your life.
I’m putting mark to work experience my current relationships and help me experience as much as I can of those real friendships by staying present in the moment of now.
Our friendships, our joy, our love, and even our grief, they all happen in this suite, fat, wide moment now the only moment that truly exists.
When we come back here and stay connected, we can start to fill the hole in our soul with love and the benefits of time.
The other thing that helps fill that hole from grief experience is simply communicating how you feel, and also not judging your own reactions and feelings, and letting your emotions come out as they arise.
If there’s anything I can do to help you if you want to talk if you’re going through something like this, please get a hold of me via email at kevinacarpenter@gmail.com or if you are really needing someone NOW, text me anytime. I turn my phone off at night but I will get it before 6 am worst case.
At the very least, let me and The GratiDude be a shoulder to cry on and hopefully even help you work through some of these things so that we can turn the corner and start building a replacement for that big hole by leveraging our collective Attitude of Gratitude!
EVERY DAY:
Love
and
Gratitude
https://www.instagram.com/GratiDude_abides
KevinACarpenter@gmail.com/941.894.8030 Text me your celly-cell so I can build my database please…..
Thank you sincerely.
The G.I.F.T. Today
Grateful: for spending time with a new cosmic friend that was delivered to my reality so clearly and directly it could not be resisted, avoided, or refused. Thx Universe and God! Keep the great people coming as we build this Grateful Tribe Globally.
Intention-Holiday hot dog parade little kid energy all damn day
First-walk the bridge perhaps
Things-check calendar of happenings for evening
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DOUBLE DONATION MODEL; ONE NOW, THE OTHER WEEK 6 BASED UPON RESULTS
Every day, every way, grateful.
KC
I am here to help, add somebody that needs a “check up from the neck up”
KevinACarpenter@gmail.com
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